


Conversational Barriers

by CaptainSunder



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Bonding, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Miscommunication, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-11 16:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4443794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainSunder/pseuds/CaptainSunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I can hear it now / beneath the screaming blood lust / your kindness whispers.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skybluemullet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skybluemullet/gifts).



> Much of this fic is inspired by my friend Kenny and our playthrough of bl2. He is playing it for the first time, and consequently, I started shipping this because of him.
> 
> I use "he/him" pronouns for Zer0, though he is still 100% agender in this fic.

When the dust settles and the last body falls, Krieg lumbers over, visible eye narrow and tense.

“Rip the skin, soil the meat,” he growls, staring hard at Zer0.

Zer0 doesn’t know what to make of that, so he wipes the blood from his blade and sheathes it slowly, watching Krieg warily. Maya trusts Krieg, which is good enough for him, but it doesn’t make being unable to read Krieg any easier.

“You did well out there / And now the job is complete / We collect the prize,” Zer0 says, pivoting to begin the return trip on foot. Their technical was destroyed in the fight, so they'd be taking the long trip back to Ellie's garage on foot.

Before he can take so much as a step, pain lances through Zer0′s gut, and he wavers, but a large hand grabs his upper arm, stopping his fall before it can start.

“Only the dead fall down,” Krieg mutters, waving his buzzaxe with the other hand.

Zer0 looks up at those inscrutable eyes, flashing a floating smiley briefly in thanks, and looks down at his stomach. His armor is damaged, a spider-web of cracks radiating from a bullet hole just under his ribs. The bullet is still lodged in the metal, a trickle of red sliding down the plates of his armor.

It’s not bad, all things considered. He regains his balance, nodding at Krieg, who’s hand is still on his arm. It’s lighter than he expected, though still firm, but when Zer0 starts walking again Krieg’s hand only tightens, halting him.

“Blooood,” Krieg draws the word out, tilting his head this way and that. His eyes are on Zer0’s wound.

Zer0 says nothing, but he tenses slightly, ready for anything. Krieg has never gone berserk on them before, but Zer0 has never been faced with such an intense look from him either. Krieg’s eyes flick from the bullet to Zer0′s faceplate, breath heavy and loud.

This time when Zer0 steps away, Krieg’s hand releases him and darts to his own head, slapping the skin between mask and straps sharply. He walks away, still slapping his head, and Zer0 follows.

~~~

They walk for miles through the dust and heat, Krieg waving his buzzaxe threateningly at the rakks that circle overhead while Zer0 lags behind. Krieg seems to know the way, but Zer0 keeps an eye on their path just the same.

Eventually the sky begins to darken, but they walk until the glow of Elpis and Helios is all they have to see by before stopping to rest. Or more accurately, Krieg climbs up on a rock and says, in his normal guttural yell, “I’ll lick your spine clean!” and then flops down.

Zer0 supposes it’s as much a declaration of tiredness as Krieg can come to, and is grateful for the chance to sit as well. He hoists himself up on the rock next to Krieg, one hand cupping the bullet still lodged in his armor. He doesn’t want to take it out, in case the bullet is keeping his blood where it’s supposed to be, but it’s getting sore the longer they walk.

“I must speak with Zed / about his new, “improved” shield / that can’t stop bullets,” Zer0 grumbles, staring out at the dark and empty wasteland.

“Bullets feed the hunger, bring the red,” Krieg seems to agree. He’s digging at his belt, in a small pouch Maya must have forced on him.

Zer0 wonders idly if Krieg is really talking to him, or simply responding to the mention of bullets. He supposes bullets do bring blood, but not usually for him. His decoy has always taken the brunt of an enemy’s clip, while he catches them by surprise with his sword. And with Krieg part of the team, he often draws a large part of the gunfire now. But there had been many bandits this time--Zer0 was probably hit by a stray shot rather than by deliberate aim.

A role of white gauze is shoved into Zer0′s face, as well as a small glass tube filled with a red liquid. Zer0 flashes an exclamation point, taking the vial of Regenerator slowly. He rewinds over what Krieg said.

“Bullets bring the red / You did not mean blood, did you? / You meant a health kit.”

“Break this glass in your chest cavity and take the life!”

A red :? flashes over his faceplate, before an :o of understanding appears.

“I misunderstood. / I thought you a mindless beast / where there is much more.”

Krieg grunts, rubbing the side of his mask.

Zer0 doesn’t know if Krieg understands his emoticons, but he flashes a winky face anyways. Krieg looks at it without seeming to see it, staring through the floating red symbols, as if to look into Zer0′s eyes. Without really thinking about it, red blush lines replace the winking face, and he turns to the bandages abruptly.

“Thanks for the assist. / I will try to keep myself / bullet free next time,” he mutters, popping the top off the vial.

He hears Krieg leap from the boulder and slam into he ground, shouting, “Time to tenderize the meat haunches,” as he takes off after a skag wandering nearby.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I'm doing these character's justice. Everyone has such a unique voice, it's hard to know if what I'm writing is in character or not.

It’s been a few days since Zer0 and Krieg walked across the desert together under Helios’ glow. Since Zer0 first understood Krieg’s incoherent language. Roland had sent him and Maya out on the next mission together, while Krieg had wandered off with Salvador to answer Moxxi’s ECHO request for help with something.

Zer0 doesn’t see Krieg for three days, but in spite of that, Krieg is all Zer0 can think about for every second of them that he’s not sleeping or fighting.

And sometimes even then.

He dreams one night that Krieg speaks to him without screaming about poop trains or tearing out someone’s eyeballs, but Zer0 can’t understand him at all.

In a shootout the next day, he finds a shotgun amidst the bodies and takes a look at its specs. It’s better than that old _Jakobs_ Krieg has been toting around forever, and he straps it to his back across his own shotgun and sniper rifle, face lighting up involuntarily in a smiley.

Even when sleeping and fighting he can’t stop thinking about Krieg. He has so many questions and so few answers. It’s not until they’re heading back to Sanctuary that Zer0 finally breaks and asks the one person who’s known Krieg the longest what she thinks.

“I have a question,” he says, sitting in the gunner seat as Maya steers the runner carefully over slick ice. “Has Krieg always been like that? / You know, a psycho?”

Maya shrugs. “I dunno, I only met him when he saved me from a rat and helped me fight. Before that, I thought he was just another bandit wandering the wastes. Why do you ask?”

“I am curious. / He is more than meets the eye / and he helped me out.” Zer0 spins the gun around, on the lookout for bullymongs, but the valley stretches off in untouched powder.

“Yeah, I know what you mean. When we met, he kept screaming at me while he hid behind a rock. I thought he was threatening me at first, but then he warned me about this rat that was sneaking up behind me. I think he might have been trying to warn me the whole time.” They swerve smoothly around a wall of rock and the ragged sign pointing towards Sanctuary comes into view.

Krieg will be there by now, probably being Tannis’ guinea pig for human interaction. Now that he thinks about it, Krieg is the most patient with Tannis besides Roland himself. She’ll scream in the middle of a conversation and he’ll growl right back and, if anything, it seems to calm her down. She often talks to him while he sharpens his buzzaxe, sometimes talking herself through a problem by explaining it to him or just practicing saying hello.

“He can’t speak his mind. / I want to understand him / but I don’t know how.” The gates to Sanctuary are in view now, Pvt. Jessup waving as he opens them.

“Look at you, making friends!” Maya says, and Zer0 can hear the grin in her voice before she turns to give it to him.

Zer0 flashes a :P at her.

“I don’t know how much there is to understand, but I think you’re already doing a good job. Just listen to him. He knows what he’s doing–I think–and actions speak louder than words, and all that junk.” When they reach Scooter's shop, she drops the runner into park and climbs out, Zer0 following at a slower pace.

He nods his thanks, and she seems to understand, because she smirks and elbows him in the ribs, right over his bullet wound.

“And don’t think I don’t know who that shotgun you picked up is for. Just let me know when the wedding is!” she laughs, walking ahead.

A floating frowny follows her as Zer0 rubs his healing bullet wound, but his face beneath the mask is burning.

~~~

After they check in with Roland, Maya heads to Moxxi's, but not before pointing him to the back of the Crimson Raiders headquarters. There, Zer0 discovers Tannis sitting on top of one of the many washing machines while Krieg digs through the guts of another. The back panel is laying on the floor and he is practically inside the machine.

"It's a metal cylinder connected to the water pump. I'd rather you find it quickly, or else I'll have to ask Scooter to do it." She shudders, lips curling in disgust. "Last time he was here he tried to woo me with a song about my beauty. I had to vomit on him before he would leave, but he did not look put out enough for my tastes. And before you even suggest it, I refuse to put my hands inside that machine. Do you know how many articles of disgusting clothing belonging to _other people_ have passed through that thing?"

Krieg grunts, yanking out a tube with more force than necessary. "I'll rip out the insides and feed on his spleen."

An offer of protection? Oddly endearing. Zer0 can’t stop the smiley from flashing over his faceplate.

"Much like my vomiting, I don't believe that is considered appropriate in polite company. Also, that is the piece I require. Hand it here." Tannis points at the metal cylinder attached to the end of tubing, and Krieg hands her the whole thing. "I... thank you for the assistance. It was necessary."

"I am necessary!" Krieg says.

Is Krieg interpreting what Tannis really meant out loud? Zer0 contemplates the irony of interpreting Krieg’s words as interpreting what Tannis meant, and holds back a snort. Maybe not everything Krieg says has to have meaning.

Tannis hops off the washer, taking the metal cylinder with tube still attached back to her work station. She passes Zer0 with hardly a glance, already absorbed in whatever she's planning and muttering to herself.

Leaving him with Krieg, who is still sitting on the floor. He’s squeezing another bit of tubing in his large hands, as if he’s imagining wringing someone’s neck.

“Kitty Cat returns from the grindhouse slaughter.”

Zer0’s head tilts, flashing three question marks, an exclamation mark as understanding hits, then a big red X in quick succession.

“I am not a cat. / These are not cat ears, they’re for / Echolocation,” he says, crossing his arms. The haiku isn’t his best, he’ll admit, not the flow he usually goes for, but he’s more than a little flustered, resisting the urge to touch the spiky “ears” protruding from his helmet self-consciously.

“And I am not the spleen of war!” Krieg yells, jumping up. He approaches rapidly, and Zer0’s faceplate flashes an alarmed double exclamation. But he holds still, waiting. Krieg’s large hand flattens on Zer0’s head, rubbing across the top of the helmet in a strangely tender stroke.

“Good Kitty Cat,” Krieg rumbles, single eye crinkled around the edges in what can only be a hidden smile.

Krieg is laughing at him. Krieg is freaking laughing at him.

Zer0 puts a hand up, curling fingers to palm and batting once at the air, tilting his head and displaying a :3. Krieg’s eye nearly closes with concealed mirth.

“If I am a cat / then you are a puppy dog; / all bark and no bite.”

“Oh my god, you two are disgusting, please take your bestial flirting elsewhere so that I may concentrate on my work!” Tannis yells, throwing a cup of pencils at them. It misses by a mile and pencils scatter around the washing machines.

Zer0 flashes a :P at her and she does the same back, but his stomach is a lump in his throat. He looks back at Krieg, and something of his stiff posture or the blank smoothness of his mask must say something, because Krieg pushes past suddenly, hand slapping at that spot on his head between mask and straps, and heads out the door, growling lowly.

Leaving Zer0 to touch the barrel of the second shotgun hanging from his back, watching Krieg go.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra-fluffy, cavity inducing sweetness.

Zer0 watches through the scope as the bandit leans against a crate, relaxed, gun at hip. Snow drifts gently in from a hole in the cavern, and Zer0 inhales, feels it biting in his lungs as his finger pulls–

“HERE COMES THE POOP TRAIN! WOO WOO!” Krieg vaults past Zer0 and off the ledge.

The bandit shifts, coming alert, and Zer0′s bullet misses by inches. He growls, slapping his sniper to his back, and follows Krieg with his shotgun.

Krieg bears down on the bandit, who is running backwards and shooting with a dingy little pistol, screaming their head off. He’s swinging his buzzaxe repeatedly, but the bandit manages to stay one step ahead as they fumble with reloading. Finally the bandit comes to a stop, aiming down the barrel. Krieg jumps, axe arcing down over his head in a graceful swing and screaming bloody murder.

Zer0 pumps the bandit so full of lead they fly to pieces in a gory spray that coats Krieg’s bare chest.

Krieg lands in the gore, staring down at the puddle that was once a bandit, and turns to look at him, eye narrowed.

Zer0 displays a >:).

A bullet whistles past. Ten more bandits have come out of buildings lining the cave walls, muzzles flashing white.

Krieg glances around, then looks back at him, and something about that narrowed eye makes Zer0 think he’s being challenged.

Challenged accepted.

Zer0 takes off, cutting through the nearest bandit, and snipes one with an SMG hanging out on a roof. He’s methodical, throwing his decoy out and coming in close to spray more bits of bandit across the ground. They’re good, though, he’ll give them that. The one on the building took his shield almost completely down, and it’s slow to recover.

He can see Krieg on the opposite side of the cavern, shotgun roaring as he fires over and over. The  _Jakobs_ detailing is visible down its side. One bandit drops behind a few pieces of metal sheeting shoved into the ground, but Krieg jumps it and slides his buzzaxe between the bandits’ shoulder blades.

Something heavy barrels into Zer0, and the world spins as his shield breaks and he flies into a stack of crates. Vision spinning, he barely makes out a psycho, bigger and more badass than Krieg, standing over him and screaming as the axe comes up.

“NO NUMBERS FOR YOU!”

Krieg meets axe with buzzaxe, slapping it aside and shoving his own straight through the bigger psycho’s chest. Blood sprays as he yanks it out. The psycho swings, but his arm flies away streaming blood, and Krieg uses the rest of the momentum from the swing to take off the psycho’s head.

Strike that, Krieg is definitely the most badass.

Psycho and head drop to the ground, still twitching, but Krieg is already crouching over Zer0, large hand hovering over Zer0′s mask, not touching.

His eye is narrow, but it’s not the challenging look from before. Hand hovering over Zer0′s mask, fingers trembling slightly, there’s worry there.

Zer0 flashes a ;3 and Krieg’s head drops, eye closed, a loud breath released through the filter of his mask.

“Don’t laugh at me, but / I think I broke my ankle / and it really sucks.” He wiggles it, and a sharp burn radiates up his shinbone and through his foot. Yeah, he definitely lost that challenge.

Taking the hand Zer0 holds out, Krieg yanks him out of the pile of smashed crates. He nearly topples over as his ankle takes his weight, hissing a soft burst of air through the helmet’s filters.

“You can’t eat the pain!” Krieg says, watching, head tilted.

Zer0 takes another step and nearly falls, grabbing at Krieg’s belt to hold himself up. It feels like his ankle is being stepped on by someone wearing nail-studded boots.

Shaking his head, Krieg leans even closer. Hands grab at knees and shoulder, and before he can protest Zer0 is scooped high and cradled to Krieg’s bloody chest.

They stay there a moment, watching each other. The skin at the edge of Krieg’s mask is turning a deep red, and Zer0 lifts his hand without thinking, running a thin finger along that rough, scarred line. Krieg flinches and Zer0 lets his hand drop, regret curling in the pit of his stomach.

“There’s no need for this. / You don’t have to carry me, / I’ll walk on my own.” Krieg cannot fight while carrying him if they are attacked, and they have yet to get what they came for.

Silence is his only reply as Krieg simply starts walking.

They bump along to the Firehawk’s lair, find the ECHO Lillith sent them for, and head back with little trouble. Both are quiet for most of the journey. Every time Zer0 tries to strike up a conversation, Krieg says nothing, not even to himself, and stares determinedly ahead the entire time. The silence settles into awkwardness the longer it goes on.

Strong as he is, not even Krieg can carry around a grown person without rest–they take a break after a while, and Krieg places Zer0 gently on the ground against the cave wall, dropping next to him with a grunt. The tunnel they’re in stretches off in either direction, little points of light marking the fires the disciples of the Firehawk have put up to light the way.

Zer0 looks up, trying to catch Krieg’s eye and give a smiley, something to ease the strange tension mounting around them, but Krieg avoids him, staring at the wall opposite.

“I am in your debt / for the second time this week. / I sense a pattern,” Zer0 tries, smiling to himself when Krieg finally looks at him.

“Numbers count the blood and not the violence,” Krieg mutters, shoulders a tense line, turning away again.

Unsure of his meaning, Zer0 says, “Wanna get some food / when we return this ECHO? / It will be my treat.”

Krieg goes rigid, before bursting up in an explosion of movement, shouting. “I am an escalator of organs!” He swings his buzzaxe at the air, turning his sharp gaze on Zer0 as he goes and shaking his head repeatedly. “The slaughter never ends, the crying never stops! Why aren’t my fingers in somebody’s eye sockets right now!?” He drops the axe, a kick sending it sliding across the dirt, and slaps at his head between the mask’s straps. “Violence becomes me, I become the violence, and the flames of hell dance in my rib cage!”

When he stops, chest heaving from his outburst, arms dropping limply to his sides, he stares at Zer0 hard, as if to make a point. Eye narrowed. Challenging.

Challenge fucking accepted.

Using the cave wall as leverage, Zer0 struggles to his feet. Krieg twitches, an aborted movement to help, and clenches his fists instead. Zer0 pushes off of the wall, limping slowly over to Krieg, each step driving nails up the bones of his leg.

He stops just short and holds out a hand. Krieg stares at it like it’s going to bite, but Zer0 gestures with four fingers until Krieg comes closer. Gestures again, holding his hand out patiently, until Krieg’s palm meets his, engulfing it. Zer0 takes him by the wrist, guiding the hand to his side, holding it there until Krieg gets the idea and leaves it against Zer0′s waist. He puts his own hands on Krieg’s shoulders. The space between them is swallowed inch by inch.

Zer0 leans up, balancing on the toes of one foot and dragging Krieg down until the smooth shell of his helmet rests against the beaten leather mask. It could almost be a kiss.

Krieg’s head starts to shake, his hand leaving Zer0′s side to slap at his head again, but this time Zer0 catches it, holds it.

“I can hear it now / beneath the screaming blood lust / your kindness whispers.” His hand slides from the shoulder, clinging to the muscle of Krieg’s back, pulling him fully into the embrace.

Krieg remains stiff, fingers twitching against Zer0′s wrist. Then his other hand is against Zero’s back, body folding around him almost completely in a bone-crushing hug.

“Not to be pushy,” Zer0 manages to get out, as the breath leaves his body, “but you never answered me / about getting food?”

“I will eat the world!” Krieg bellows in his ear. Disentangling their hands, Krieg lifts Zer0′s legs clear off the ground and takes off down the tunnel.

“Must you carry me / as a prince does a princess / from her cold tower?” he mutters, crossing his arms, flashing a >:P.

“Let’s devour the dragon and bask in it’s entrails!”


End file.
